


No Place for the Living

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M, snape/black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-02 19:21:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flesh and bone and rope have their limits, and Snape never pushes too hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Place for the Living

**Author's Note:**

> Written for iamisaac in the 2008 round of snapelyholidays.
> 
> Warnings for dub-con and bondage.

****Sirius counts the grey stones, one by one, until they blur together and he loses track. He counts them until he is more dog than man, until he shifts and makes the change. Everything is simpler when everything is grey.

World without end, this is the end of him. Sirius's bones are brittle and will break. He tenses, stretching each muscle to the limit, and can't break free from his bonds. His fingers are numb and cold, his hands caught over his head, tied there and letting the blood drain down into his body. Hanged men die like this, if their necks never break - they feel the blood seeping down their veins, unable to fight through the pull of gravity.

It's a hard death. Sirius dies a little every minute - the memories come and come again, colour flashing past his eyes. This is the only colour he's ever seen here, and it's leached away from him, drop by drop. Lily's eyes turn grey and James's smile is gone, his lips bleached and cracked. The flesh pulls back from his face until it's a death mask, until he's nothing more than a skeleton grin. It's too much for Sirius to bear.

When Snape comes, it's almost a relief. He forces Sirius's head back, pushing it as far as it will go. But flesh and bone and rope have their limits, and Snape never pushes too hard.

His fingers are cold and his nails dig into Sirius's skin until it hurts. This is more than Sirius ever bargained for - this is more than he wanted. Snape is as hard as a rock and as unyielding, though he is the one who has a place in the world of flesh and of the living.

Sirius's jaw aches, but Snape forces his mouth open wide. Every millimetre counts - every motion hurts. Sirius clenches his hands into fists. His nails are long and ragged, but not sharp enough to cut his skin. He's been hardened by every year here.

Every day, Sirius tells himself, is a new day, the day that things might change. Every day, Snape comes - the black-hearted bastard.

"Black," Snape says, his fingers digging deeper into Sirius's skin. His mind grips Sirius's in an intimate, oily embrace - it's Legilimency, Bella's specialty, and Sirius has no defence without his wand. He grits his teeth and closes his eyes, and Snape is still there, looming over him and ripping his thoughts to shreds.

This is the the moment when Snape looks for the one thing that Sirius keeps hidden. It's deep in him. It _is_ him, the only thing that he has left to keep. He's innocent.

Snape takes his time. It's almost over, the last ripples spreading through Sirius's brain like rainbows from spilled oil, wavering and changing. The ropes that bind him are the only thing keeping him steady. Snape is the only colour in a gray world. He is black and white, yes, but his teeth are yellow and his lips pink and then his fingertips turn purple when he pinches Sirius too hard.

The torch on the wall outside the cell flickers. The guard brings it whenever Snape comes, and the light drives away the Dementors. Snape leaves it when he goes, letting it burn away to nothing on the stone. Wood and tar to ashes - there's nothing else to burn. Sirius is left alone when Snape leaves. He's left to watch it burn away and to wait for the Dementors.

Snape goes farther each time, pushing Sirius harder. He begins with soft touches, as if he can unravel Sirius with kindness where blows have not worked. The Dementors did not destroy him - Snape, _Snivellus Snape_, can do no better or worse than they. His blows touch Sirius's flesh, but not his soul.

He does remember. He remembers the parts of his life that the Dementors have left to him, the colours they do not want. Black. A house with twisting staircases and mirrors made of cracked glass, and his mother, singing a lullaby. His father, drinking old cognac. Regulus hitting his head on the stairs and cracking open his flesh so that a red line split his face into halves.

His mother roasted a goose for Christmas and strung up the carcass on a lamp post, leaving it for the birds. Like calls to like, she said, her fingers sharp on Sirius's shoulder when she pulled him away from the goose.

These are the memories that Sirius has. They're a poor defense against _Snivellus_, but he throws them up and keeps him out, away from the secret. He mustn't know.

Snape has his fingers on Sirius's cock and is twisting his balls, pinching them between his sallow fingers. His skin is stained from potions, and there's some colour there - there's colour there. Sirius knows Snape wants to break him.

Each day, Snape goes a little farther. Each time, it's worse. He's learning his way on Sirius's body, learning where to pinch and where to scar, when to stop and when to hurt.

Sirius is the only one who touches Snape - the only one who _will_ touch him, the greasy bastard. He holds that thought at the front of his mind, offering it up to him. But Snape only smirks and cuts Sirius down from the ceiling.

They cut hanged men down from the gallows, after their necks snap. They cut necks with a guillotine in France. Sirius learned it in the school room, sitting side-by-side with Regulus and jostling him with an elbow. The ways to deal death, the ways to kill a Muggle - Sirius knows them still, had them rapped into his knuckles with a switch. Each blow stung and cracked his flesh.

His blood stings as it flows through arms and hands and fingers, numb from the rope. Snape has a salve that he uses, a greasy potion that he spreads over Sirius's skin. It hurts more than the rope did.

Muggles keep dead men in wooden boxes, in painted churches. Sirius has seen their sepulchers carved with praying angels, crypts full of crosses and graven crowns, promises of the life to come. He has been in the churches when they were full of light and music, the sunlight in the stained glass windows and the bell-tones of the organ. The incense smelled like roses and smoke, and the choir was full of fresh-faced Muggles.

Sirius's box is bigger than theirs, but just as cold. There's room for him and Snape and the rope that bound him up high enough to see the light from the tiny crack of a window. On a good day, he can hear the sound of the sea.

Snape's nails dig into Sirius's flesh. The foul-smelling stuff has been rubbed into his skin, all of it, and Snape's hands are greasier than usual. Sirius will see him dead, too. When he goes and the Dementors come back, Sirius sees the world stretched out in corpses, dead bloated bodies lying in neat rows.

Snape pinches him harder, twisting his arms behind his back. "On your knees."

The floor is hard. Sirius makes a grab for Snape's cloak, wadding it up into a ball and kneeling on it. He puts his hands together as though he's praying, brushes the hair out of his eyes and lets his head fall back, looking up at Snape.

He's the only one who will do this for Snape - the only person who will touch him. Sirius pushes that to the front of his mind and makes sure that Snape knows it, makes sure that Snape knows that no one will ever love him. No one will touch him willingly.

Snape will lie in a row with the others, but no one will come for his body. No one will lay him to rest in a Muggle box or a wizard's tomb. No one will care when he is dead.

Snape fists a hand in Sirius's hair and forces his head further back, holding him there until it hurts. "No one cares what you think, Black. No one cares. No one will come for you. You're already dead."

Sirius has his secret and he is not dead. He will have no kiss but a Dementor's Kiss, will know no touch other than Snape's, but he had a life that was bright and full of colour. He had more than this. _James, Lily -_

He unbuttons Snape's trousers and takes out his cock. It's small and as ugly as he is -_Snivellus._ But Sirius takes it in his hands and strokes it, breathing warmth onto it.

It's cold here, too cold. Snape's hands are on his shoulders, forcing him to stay still. Snape pulls him back, fucking his mouth before he has time to take a breath. It's hard and harsh and fast.

Snape holds Sirius still, keeps his hands on Sirius's shoulders. He's warm. He's not the first person Sirius would want to fuck, but he's warm and that counts for a lot, here. Sirius keeps his eyes closed.

The Dementors have been gone for most of an hour. He can count the stones in the wall now, numbering them one by one - the way that he used to count the numbers that were rapped into his knuckles in the school room. He was able to go past ten, once, and now that he's come back to himself again, now he makes it to a hundred. Counting the stones while Snape fucks his mouth, with the cloak crumpled under his knees and Snape's hands on his shoulders. He can do it.

"Reduced to this, Black … children's counting games. How low you've sunk." Snape laughs. He's still in Sirius's thoughts, a dark and dirty presence in his mind - slick as oil, sliding through him. He's fucking Sirius harder, taking his mouth and using it, and Sirius rocks in time with Snape's thrusts, holding his mouth open for him. He's there to be taken and used, a shadow and a memory that's good for nothing else.

His memories are gone and grey. The Dementors swirl around the edge of the torch's light, but are too far away to do him any harm - Snape is there, and has a wand. He's as fast as any wizard Sirius has seen, as fast as Mother with her cutting curse.

When the torch flickers and a brave Dementor darts into the light, Snape is there. Sirius isn't the only one with a secret. He sees Snape's secret - a silver Patronus, a doe like Lily's. It's graceful and quick, chasing the Dementor back with its sharp hooves, and Sirius closes his eyes, swallowing around Snape's cock.

Muggles keep dead men in wooden boxes and make stone statues to put up in parks. Wizards use tombs made out of stone, lined with proper spells to preserve the bodies and keep them from rot. Lily's safe in her grave, next to James, and warded with spell after spell. Snape will never touch her again.

It's the way that Sirius would have chosen to die. The Killing Curse is as sharp and painless as anything. He knows the ways that there are to die, has numbered them in his sleep and counted them on the rows of grey stones in his cell. Each one is worse than the last. Each one is catalogued and stored for Peter, a potential way to make him pay.

Snape thrusts harder and harder, and Sirius swallows around him again, using his mouth as best he knows, using his mouth to please Snape.

The stones blur together, and Sirius's vision turns grey. He's clutching at Snape, hands on his thighs - using the touch as much to hold himself upright as anything. It's not about Snape. It's not about Snape, the greasy bastard who will pay for every nasty thing he said to James, every time he made Lily cry.

_Snivellus_ Snape will pay, in this world or the next. The Muggles with their wooden boxes and stained glass windows with pictures of haloed angels and leprous beggars, they know. They know. There are ways to die. There are ways to kill a man, whether he's Muggle or wizard, and Sirius knows them all.

His hands tighten on Snape's thighs and he's breathing hard through his nose, he's letting Snape fuck his mouth and this is it, this is the way that Snape brings colour into Azkaban. His cheeks flush when he comes, ugly red splotches of colour on his cheekbones.

"This changes nothing," Snape says. He spits on Sirius before he leaves.

It doesn't matter. He will pay for what he had done to James and Lily - he will pay for being a dirty Death Eater.

He's gone from Sirius's mind. It hurts, the sudden pull - a wrench. They were wrapped together, mind to mind - but Snape never found his secret. Snape never did, but Sirius learned his. The doe Patronus. It's Lily who he loves, after all these years.

When Snape leaves, he leaves his cloak. Sirius curls up in the corner of the cell, wrapped in the rough fabric. It hurts his skin, his wrists still sore with burns from the ropes that bound him. It hurts, and without Snape here, the prison is as cold as death.

He's wrapped up in the cloak like a shroud, caught up in a cell the size of a wooden box - but he's not dead. He's not dead.


End file.
